Pike's Universum

'Pike's Universum' Articles

A new blog post over at Pike's Universum, a site known for digging deeper into Mac firmware files, claims to have found data relating to some form of mobile connectivity in the upcoming iMac Pro that could be used for "advanced theft protection" similar to Apple's Find my iPhone service.
Even the cheapest iMac Pro costs $4999 and is thus far more expensive than any other iMac model that is now available, let alone the top of the line one with a price tag north of $15K, and it is so easy to walk away with a 27-inch computer, and that may be why Apple is going to introduce a new kind of “Find my iMac Pro” type of theft protection. One that phones home to report the exact GPS location. And there’s no way of switching it off…The post goes on to suggest that the data could alternatively relate to a new feature in the iMac Pro that uses a SIM card to make phone calls. "Or perhaps the data that I found has to be a leftover from iOS for the iPhone," ends the post, qualifying the claims as speculation at this point.
No further details on the uncovered data in the iMac Pro firmware were forthcoming, but Pike's Universum has offered relevant information in the past. The site revealed some of the iMac Pro's tech specs back in April, two months prior to it being announced, including that it would have Xeon processors, ECC RAM, faster SSD storage, AMD graphics options, and Thunderbolt 3 ports, although some of the specific details were inaccurate.
Later, in June, the site claimed that files in a macOS High Sierra developer beta suggested the iMac Pro could be powered by

Apple recently said it is working on a "completely rethought" Mac Pro with a modular design that will be accompanied by an Apple-branded pro display.
Apple did not share any specific details about the external display, but if the blog Pike's Universum is to be believed, it could feature an impressive 8K resolution. The report did not offer any additional details about the display, including a potential release date, but Apple said it won't be ready this year.
8K displays are just starting to reach the market now, led by Dell's new 32-inch UltraSharp 8K display, which retails for $5,000 in the United States. Apple has yet to launch a display with greater than 5K resolution, as found on the iMac with Retina 5K Display and the UltraFine 5K Display it partnered with LG on.
Apple confirmed that it had exited the standalone display market after discontinuing the Thunderbolt Display in June 2016, but it has evidently reversed course. It's a smart move, given concerns that Apple was no longer focused on pros, and considering that LG's UltraFine 5K Display had a hardware flaw.
On the Mac mini front, the blog said that the next high-end model "won't be so mini anymore," suggesting the most expensive configuration might have a larger or taller design to accommodate for upgraded tech specs. Apple last updated the Mac mini in October 2014, a span of 903 days, per the MacRumors Buyer's Guide.
Apple recently said the Mac mini is "important" within its product lineup, but it remained tight-lipped about the prospects of future updates.
The current Mac mini models,

Earlier this week, Apple made the rare move of pre-announcing that it is working on new pro-focused iMac models that will launch later this year.
Apple did not share any specific details about what the upgrades will entail, but if the blog Pike's Universum is to be believed, the next-generation iMac lineup could feature several improvements that make Apple's desktop computer a more powerful workstation for professionals and average consumers alike.
The blog, citing a "little bird" that is "usually pretty accurate," claims the incoming iMac lineup will be available with up to the following tech specs: • Intel Xeon E3 processors: The new iMac will supposedly have up to a pro-grade Intel Xeon E3-1285 v6 processor. Intel has not released that particular chip yet, but based on previous generations of the E3-1285, the processor could essentially be the E3-1280 v6 coupled with integrated Intel HD Graphics P630. Notably, Xeon processors support ECC RAM.
• 16GB to 64GB of ECC RAM: 16GB of ECC RAM, configurable to 32GB or 64GB, in line with the current Mac Pro. iMacs currently have 8GB of non-ECC RAM, configurable to 16GB or 32GB. ECC RAM can detect and repair errors that cause data corruption and system crashes. No word if it will be DDR3L or DDR4.
• Faster NVMe SSDs: The rumor claims the next iMacs will have faster NVM Express PCIe-based flash storage with capacities up to 2TB. The current 4K and 5K iMac models are also configurable with NVMe PCIe-based SSDs or Fusion Drives up to 2TB.
• AMD graphics: The new iMacs will supposedly have AMD graphics options to

While the next major version of macOS likely won't be announced until the WWDC 2017 opening keynote on June 5, eagle-eyed blogger Pike's Universum has discovered what appears to be Apple's first public sign of macOS 10.13.
Specifically, the blog shared a portion of the App Store URL, otherwise known as a CatalogURL, for macOS 10.13. We were subsequently able to pinpoint the full URL by tweaking an older CatalogURL link, and it appears to be a secure HTTPS link originating from Apple's servers, so the screenshot is legitimate.
The full URL: https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-10.13seed.merged-1.sucatalog.gz
We don't know much about what's coming in macOS 10.13 at this point, but visits we're receiving from Macs running pre-release versions of macOS 10.13 have been picking up steadily since the beginning of the year, presumably as Apple's engineers work on the operating system update ahead of its unveiling.
Visits to MacRumors from Macs running macOS 10.13
We don't know what the successor to macOS Sierra will be called, but in 2014, Apple trademarked a long list of names that could be used for future updates. Names range from popular beaches and well-known cities in California, where Apple is headquartered, to mountains, deserts, and animals.
A list of known trademarked names that have yet to be used: Redwood, Mammoth, California, Big Sur, Pacific, Diablo, Miramar, Rincon, Redtail, Condor, Grizzly, Farallon, Tiburon, Monterey, Skyline, Shasta, Mojave, Sequoia, Ventura, and Sonoma. An entirely different name is certainly possible too.

Ever since the original MacBook Pro, Apple has identified the notebooks based on the time of year in which they were released.
Early: January-April
Mid: May-August
Late: September-DecemberThe first MacBook Pro with a Retina display, for example, has a "Mid 2012" model name because it was released in June of that year.
Apple continued this trend when it launched its latest MacBook Pro lineup in October. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, along with the new 13-inch MacBook Pro with a standard row of function keys, were described as "late 2016" models on Apple's website and support documentation.
Just recently, however, Apple appears to have dropped the "late" portion of "late 2016" when referring to its latest MacBook Pro models, as spotted by Apple blog Pike's Universum. Apple now simply identifies all of its latest MacBook Pros as "2016" models on its tech specs pages and under "About This Mac" on the second macOS 10.12.4 beta.
The latest MacBook Pro models are still identified as "MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2016)" or "MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016)" under "About This Mac" on earlier macOS Sierra versions for some users. Apple also has a few support documents that still refer to a "late-2016 MacBook Pro" in sentence usage on its website.
Given that Apple only refreshed its MacBook Pro lineup once last year, it is reasonable to assume that "late" was an unnecessary descriptor; however, Apple still refers to its latest 12-inch MacBook as "Early 2016" despite there being no other updates to that notebook last year. The same applies to

While the latest MacBook Pro with Touch Bar notebooks launched under four months ago, references to possible next-generation models have already been discovered in the latest macOS 10.12.4 beta.
Apple blog Pike's Universum uncovered a trio of motherboard identifiers that do not correspond with any current MacBook Pro model, but use the exact same processor power management data as 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models released in late 2016. The plist files do not exist in previous macOS Sierra versions.
The next-generation MacBook Pro models would likely be powered by Intel's faster Kaby Lake processors, which are the natural successor to Skylake processors used in late 2016 models. This would be in line with a report from six weeks ago claiming the MacBook Pro will receive only minor bumps in processing power for 2017.
Mac-B4831CEBD52A0C4C would likely be for two new 13-inch MacBook Pro models with function keys. The models would likely have Kaby Lake processors with a maximum Turbo Boost of 3400 MHz and 4000 MHz respectively.
Mac-CAD6701F7CEA0921 would likely be for three new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models. These notebooks would likely have Kaby Lake processors with a maximum Turbo Boost of 3500/3700 MHz and 4000 MHz respectively.
Mac-551B86E5744E2388 would likely be for three new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models. These notebooks would likely have Kaby Lake processors with a maximum Turbo Boost of 3800/3900 MHz and 4100 MHz respectively.The blog said it checked the performance bias setting of each motherboard and determined that they

An updated 12-inch Retina MacBook may be launching before the end of April, according to information discovered in Apple's System Image Utility feature and in the OS X Server application by a source that shared details with 9to5Mac.
System Image Utility lists the existing early 2015 Retina MacBook and an early 2016 Retina MacBook, which has yet to be released. Given that it's earmarked as an "early" 2016 device, the next-generation Retina MacBook should be coming soon, as Apple refers to "early" for devices that launch during the first four months of the year. The same 12-inch early 2016 MacBook is listed the OS X Server application.
The Retina MacBook first launched in April of 2015, so an April 2016 update at the one year mark makes sense. A refresh will likely be minor, leaving the overall design unchanged but introducing upgraded internals, such as one of Intel's Skylake chips.
Skylake chips appropriate for the Retina MacBook have been available since the later months of 2015. The new Core M Skylake processors offer 10 hours of battery life and 10 to 20 percent faster CPU performance compared to the Core M Broadwell processors used in the first-generation Retina MacBook, along with 40 percent faster graphics performance.
There are no mentions of new Retina MacBook Pro or MacBook Air models in OS X Server or System Image Utility, and it continues to remain unclear when exactly we might see refreshes for those machines.
A rumor yesterday suggested Apple is working on "ultra-thin" 13-inch and 15-inch MacBooks, but it is not known if those machines are in

It's been two years since Apple launched its radically redesigned Mac Pro, but the professional-level workstation has not seen any updates since that time despite the availability of upgraded versions of many of the components used in the machine. We may be getting closer to an update, however, as Pike's Universum has discovered a reference to a new Mac code name of "AAPLJ951" within OS X El Capitan.
The identity of the Mac corresponding to that code name is not explicitly revealed in OS X, but Pike points to the similar AAPLJ90 code name for the current Mac Pro as a reason to believe this new machine is a Mac Pro.
The data is identical to that of the late 2015 (iMac17,1 in the same file) so it may as well be a remnant of the new iMac, but the strange thing is that the XHCI data for the late 2015 iMac is also there, which is why I believe that this is not/was not added for the/a new iMac but another Mac.
And like I said earlier in the comments, there are too many USB 3 ports defined to fit on a MacBook (Pro) and Mac Mini. This and the fact that there is already support for newer graphics chips [baked] into El Capitan… is why I think that it was added for a new Mac Pro. I personally sure hope so.Looking toward possible specs for the next Mac Pro, it seems likely it will run on Xeon-branded Broadwell EP chips and include significantly faster graphics based on AMD's Fury platform, along with faster memory and storage and perhaps Thunderbolt 3 connectivity involving a partial shift to USB-C

Mentions of new iMac models are buried inside the OS X Mavericks 10.9.4 beta that was seeded earlier today.
There are three new resource files for power management that mention three new iMacs with model numbers beginning with 15, according to some digging done by Pike's Universum (via TonyMacx86). The current iMac line is made up of models 14,1 and 14,2.
The most interesting part is the addition of three new resources (plist) files for power management:
Mac-81E3E92DD6088272.plist / iMac15,1 (IGPU only)
Mac-42FD25EABCABB274.plist / iMac15,n (IGPU/GFX0/Apple display with id 0xAE03)
Mac-FA842E06C61E91C5.plist / iMac15,n (IGPU/GFX0/Apple display with id 0xAE03)Rumors have suggested that new iMac models could make an appearance at WWDC next week after shipping estimates for the machine began to slip on the Apple Online Store.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo stated earlier this year that a lower-priced iMac was expected in mid-2014.
Update 3:30 PM PT: Apple appears to have pulled the 10.9.4 beta from the Mac App Store and Developer Center four hours after it was released. No reason was given for the removal.

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